On: 21 Novem ber 2012, At : 14: 31Publisher : Rout ledge I nfor m a Lt d Regist er ed in England and Wales Regist er ed Num ber : 1072954 Regist er ed office: Mor t im er House, 37- 41 M
Trang 1On: 21 Novem ber 2012, At : 14: 31
Publisher : Rout ledge
I nfor m a Lt d Regist er ed in England and Wales Regist er ed Num ber : 1072954 Regist er ed office: Mor t im er House, 37- 41 Mor t im er St r eet , London W1T 3JH, UK
Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education
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Silence as right, choice, resistance and strategy among Chinese ‘Me Generation’ students: implications for pedagogy
Phan Le Ha a & Binghui Li a a
Facult y of Educat ion, Monash Universit y, Clayt on, VIC, Aust ralia Version of record first published: 21 Nov 2012
To cite this article: Phan Le Ha & Binghui Li (2012): Silence as right , choice, resist ance and
st rat egy among Chinese ‘ Me Generat ion’ st udent s: implicat ions for pedagogy, Discourse: St udies in
t he Cult ural Polit ics of Educat ion, DOI:10.1080/ 01596306.2012.745733
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Trang 2Silence as right, choice, resistance and strategy among Chinese
‘Me Generation’ students: implications for pedagogy
Phan Le Ha* and Binghui Li
Faculty of Education, Monash University, Clayton, VIC, Australia
The topic of silence and ‘the Chinese learner’ has been extensively studied often in relation to cross-cultural adjustment, intercultural issues, learning styles, lan-guage ability and differences of classroom expectations These studies have often led to recommendations to understand silence and ‘the Chinese learner’ in more complex ways However, there is a real need to go beyond just recognising the complexity and myths underlying these two notions This article consolidates the need to recognise diversity and fluidity among this group of students and the changing time and space in which silence experiences among them are contextualised and studied It does so by revisiting established meanings of in-class silence obtained from a qualitative case study with ‘Me Generation’ Chinese students studying in Australia, while contextualising the phenomenon in both Chinese and Australian classrooms Pedagogical implications building upon
the discussion of silence as right, choice, resistance and strategy among these
students are provided
Keywords: higher education; international students; Chinese students; silence; pedagogy; Australia
Introduction
That afternoon, after finishing my inquiry about the assignment, my lecturer asked me a question ‘Why do you seldom answer questions in class?’ That moment I was stuck, as
I had never expected to be asked such a question In my view, this question was equal to those that did not need an answer, such as, ‘Why do you like blue?’ I just like it (Lily’s diary)
The topic of silence and ‘the Chinese learner’ has been studied extensively over the past few decades, often in relation to cross-cultural adjustment, intercultural issues, academic performance, learning styles, cultural patterns, language ability and differences of classroom expectations These studies have often led to recommenda-tions to understand silence and ‘the Chinese learner’ in more complex ways However, there is a real need to go beyond just recognising the complexity and myths underlying these two notions This article does so by offering pedagogical
implications that build upon the discussion of silence as right, choice, resistance
and strategy among Chinese students born in the 1980s.
*Corresponding author Email: Ha.phan@monash.edu
2012, 116, iFirst article
ISSN 0159-6306 print/ISSN 1469-3739 online
# 2012 Taylor & Francis
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01596306.2012.745733
Trang 3This article responds to Chan’s (2010) argument that:
although there is a continuing growing interest in the Chinese learner, relatively less attention, thus far, has been given to examining the contemporary Chinese learner in the light of changing global and educational contexts (p 169)
Likewise, Jin and Cortazzi (2011) and Ryan (2010) urge more research to be done to explore the dynamic changes associated with China’s educational reforms, its internationalisation of education and China’s emerging role as a significant player internationally Examining ‘in-class silence’ experiences and perceptions among a group of 1980s-born [Me Generation (MG)] postgraduate students from Mainland China in the context of contemporary China and Australia, the findings reported in the article not only enrich the field but also offer pedagogical contributions
Me Generation (Elegant, 2007) refers to the post-1980s generation in China,
many of whom currently study in tertiary institutions in Australia and other
English-speaking countries The term Me Generation suggests that the impression the Chinese
society often has of this generation, ‘the centre of Me’, a concept that implies various meanings associated with silence One author of this article, whose pseudonym is Lily, described herself as an MG member Her reflection on her experience with in-class silence and on the dilemmas she had faced, as China was going through significant changes in terms of social, cultural and educational values, has also been incorporated into this article
The article first revisits research into the in-class silence experience of Chinese students in China and in English-speaking Western contexts It next discusses values associated with the MG in China, followed by review of the key concepts of
collectivism, face and Chinese culture of learning, as these have often been seen as the
excuse and cause for silence among Chinese students The article emphasises the opportunity/empowerment Chinese MG students (MGers) have to be more ‘open’ about their feelings in discussing their in-class silence experience It argues for the need to see silence as choice, right, resistance and ‘strategic’ competition among a group of MGers, whose experience in both China and Australia was revealed Being exposed to transnational learning space, these students’ explanations of their silence and other students’ silence in Chinese and Australian classrooms challenge many previous studies on in-class silence among Chinese students that often treat ‘learning diversity’ in fixed terms and under unchanged homogeneous Confucian ideas The findings of this study urge the need to approach silence as pedagogy in learning, teaching and research
Revisiting research into the in-class silence experience of Chinese students
Over the past 30 years, ‘the Chinese learner’ has often been studied from either the deficit or the surplus model (Ryan, 2010) Specifically in relation to Chinese students and silence, the ‘deficit’ model tends to stereotype students as passive learners who are reluctant to speak in the classroom Their reticence in this model is often linked
to obedience, lack of critical thinking, spontaneous oral participation, sitting quietly,
or having no questions or answers (e.g Ballard & Clanchy, 1984, 1997; Hu, 2002; Liu, 2002; Samuelowicz, 1987) Under this approach, Chinese students have been homogenised and thus variations across generations of Chinese learners and the
Trang 4changes that have occurred both inside and outside China over times have been ignored This deficit model thus treats ‘the Chinese student’ as a ‘reduced Other’ and/or as a fixed static homogeneous group, as criticised by Clark and Gieve (2006), Grimshaw (2007), Gu and Maley (2008) and Gu and Schweisfurth (2006)
On the other hand, the ‘surplus’ model tends to largely praise Chinese students for their positive attributes, seeing them as models of success and valuable resources for the Western academia to learn from (e.g Watkins & Biggs, 1996, 2001) In contrast to some
of the findings of scholars who follow the deficit model, scholars promoting the surplus model have provided evidence from the literature on Chinese rhetoric that shows that
‘independent thinking’ and ‘originality and skill in reasoning and expression’ have long been advocated in Chinese academic traditions (Kirkpatrick, 2005, cited in Gu & Brooks, 2008, p 343; Kracke, 1953, p 62; Moloughney, 2002;) The assumed non-participation and silence among Chinese students, in light of this approach, are interpreted as part of a process of active thinking and a form of participation That said, the surplus approach, while viewing ‘the Chinese learner’ as a complex subject, often does not go beyond the surface of the de-generalisation of certain attributes claimed to be possessed by Chinese students only As such, this approach tends to shift
‘the Chinese learner’ from a subject having all the ‘minuses’ to one possessing all of the
‘pluses’, and is thus ultimately another mode of stereotyping (Ryan, 2010)
Grimshaw (2007) has been one of the few scholars who has attempted, though very briefly, to read the in-class silence and seemingly non-participation experiences among many Chinese students in classrooms in China in such a manner that treats these students as complex human beings with feelings, emotions, ambitions, motives, resentment and attitudes He demonstrates that ‘withdrawal and refusal to participate verbally in the lesson was often a form of protest’ (p 306) among many students Nevertheless, Grimshaw does not place in-class silence as the central focus of his study, nor does he pay any more attention to this phenomenon apart from the abovementioned findings This study will further Grimshaw’s (2007) approach by contextualising in-class silence among Chinese MG students in both Chinese and Australian classrooms This will offer scope for comparative analysis and for understanding why many Chinese students still appear to be silent in Australian classrooms despite their reportedly perceived positive experiences with the Australian classroom in general
The ‘Me Generation’ in China
MG refers to the post-1980s-born generation, the time when the two most important policies in China, the one-child policy and the open-door policy, brought about significant changes in the country Many urban children from this generation tended
to grow up in the age of an economic boom, technology development, educational availability, a cultural influx and under extra care of their parents, which have given the MG a unique experience that former generations had never before undergone These children, in many ways, share similar experiences in the ways they were brought up and educated in the context of contemporary China
A popular metaphor about the MG in China represents them as ‘flowers in a glasshouse’ They were grown as an individual plant, but their growing procedure was under scrutiny, and the temperature, humidity, water, nutrition and all other essential elements were controlled Parents at home often influenced MGers with
Trang 5Chinese traditional values, and teachers at schools taught them to be good citizens according to Chinese culture Nevertheless, this generation has experienced value clashes and different kinds of pressures from everywhere, as China has opened its door to the world and continues to enjoy sharp economic growth Reflecting on her experience of value clashes and educational paradoxes, Lily, the co-author of this article who sees herself as a MG member, wrote in her diary:
However, when reality one day permeated into the family and the education system via the development of the technology, especially the Internet, the environment around us changed When the absolute truth no longer existed, facing the bubbles of pluralism, we lost our direction, as each direction was leading to different destinations Traditions were still affecting us, while the other values from ‘Western’ culture, or materialism or pragmatism emerging along with the economic boom, reminded us of an alternative option Confusions appeared here We were taught to be loyal to friendship, however the situation appeared Materialism would teach us that money is even more important We were taught to be respectful to the elders, however, when the situation appeared, pragmatism would teach us that self-satisfaction is the priority The traditions and other values surrounded and influenced us, as impetus, or restrictions The conflicts worried or even made us suffer to the extent that we did not want to care about it any longer This was the Me Generation, struggling in the pool of the pluralism and trying
to find the ‘Me’ in their dictionary
Lily’s reflection reinforces Grimshaw’s (2007) observation of contemporary Chinese education in urbanised areas in which traditional Chinese classroom teaching and learning styles have been integrated with Western teaching and learning approaches, and this to a certain extent, has challenged the conventional role of the teacher and the teacherstudent relationship The open-door policy, the increase of international educational exchanges, and the current marketisation of Chinese higher education have brought about an influx of Western pedagogies and educational values that have re-positioned the role of the teacher and student in China Many MG students, accordingly, have developed their own different values and beliefs that reflect the changes taking place in the society and in education For example, Shi’s (2006) recent research on Chinese middle-school students’ English learning demonstrates that although the hierarchical structure in the Chinese society brings teachers respect automatically for their authoritative position, 98% of 17-year-old Year-10 students in her study, while loving teachers, ‘love truth more’ (p 131) Her findings show ‘the majority of them would not follow teachers’ ideas blindly, but would ask their teachers after class’ and ‘some confident students would inquire immediately in the class’ (p 131) Grimshaw’s (2007) participants consolidate Shi’s findings, pointing out how many Chinese students reacted when they were not satisfied with their teachers’ lectures in a Chinese university, as evident in their silent protest or strategic non-participation
Deconstructing silence, challenging ‘collectivism’, ‘face’ and the ‘Chinese culture of learning’
Research conducted about China and/or Chinese students often places a great emphasis on the important role Confucian values play in Chinese culture and education (Ballard & Clanchy, 1997; Cheng, 2000; Hue, 2007; Jones, 1999; Leng, 2005; Wen & Clement, 2003) ‘The Chinese culture’ referred to in many of these
Trang 6studies tends to suggest that Confucian values continue to have the same dominant effect on Chinese education as in the past However, as indicated in recent studies about Chinese educational reform and values (Ha, McPherron, & Que, 2011; Jin & Cortazzi, 2011; Louie, 2005; Ryan & Louie, 2007; Shi, 2006), it is questionable whether the traditional Confucian values and beliefs embedded in education still have currency in contemporary China given China’s internationalisation of educa-tion policies and its increasing contacts with Western cultures
The following sections, therefore, revisit the supposedly dominant values
under-lying the Chinese classroom, namely collectivism, face and the Chinese culture of
learning, as often discussed in most studies conducted about Chinese education.
Collectivism and face
Chinese society is most often seen as a typically collectivist one (Wen & Clement, 2003), and thus the group rather than the individual is the basic unit in society (Hsu,
1981 cited in Leung, 1996) In most Chinese classrooms, as many studies have indicated, issues about the group are more valued than those about individuals, where private questions are not encouraged during class hours as this is seen as wasting other students’ time (Liu, 2002; Zhou, Knoke, & Sakamoto, 2005) Answering questions is also discouraged as this is usually regarded as a way to show off and dwarf others (Schoenhals, 1994)
‘Face’ is another concern in the way students are expected to behave in Chinese classrooms There is a popular Chinese expression that ‘a man needs face as a tree needs its bark’ (Hue, 2007, p 41) In order not to lose ‘face’, questions such as ‘How will others think? What will others evaluate?’ or ‘How will others respond?’ (Hue,
2007, p 20) are usually considered before an interaction between a Chinese person and others occurs (Wen & Clement, 2003) If the answers are negative, their performances are likely to be influenced According to these studies and others, such
as that by Jin and Cortazzi (2006), the concern about ‘face’ tends to cause many Chinese students to sit quietly in classrooms However, with the discussion presented earlier about the MG in China, there is no guarantee that ‘face’ still affects students
in this generation in the same traditional manner A significant question raised by Rastall (2006) is that if learning is taking place in non-Chinese contexts, will ‘face’ still govern Chinese students’ behaviour?
The Chinese culture of learning
The notion of a ‘culture of learning’ is used:
to describe taken-for-granted frameworks of expectations, attitudes, values and beliefs about how to teach or learn successfully and about how to use talk in interaction, among other aspects of learning (Cortazzi & Jin, 2006, p 9)
As such:
a culture of learning frames what teachers and students expect to happen in classrooms and how participants interpret the format of classroom instruction, the language of teaching and learning, and how interaction should be accomplished as part of the social construction of an educational discourse system (Cortazzi & Jin, 2006, p 9)
Trang 7The Chinese culture of learning views teachers as the authority in Chinese classrooms and as the only source of knowledge, in which ‘the teacher’s words were always truths and truths were to be parroted and memorized but not to be questioned’ (Ting, 1987, cited in Wen & Clement, 2003, p 22) Yu (1984, cited in Wen & Clement, 2003) offers the following description of the traditional way of knowledge transmission informed by the Chinese culture of learning: ‘providing background knowledge, explaining passages and contexts, giving answers to controversial questions, [and] lecturing on the subject’ (p 22), stating that these still remain dominant in most Chinese classrooms
In talking about the Chinese culture of learning, however, there is a tendency to treat ‘Chinese culture’ as being static and unchanged over times Carroll and Ryan (2005), Chan and Rao (2010), Grimshaw (2007), Gu and Maley (2008), Gu and Schweisfurth (2006), Jin and Cortazzi (2011), Louie (2005) and Ryan and Slethaug (2010), among others, have criticised this tendency So a question arises, what if the values and beliefs held by students in current China are different from the traditional ones? What implications then are to be offered to our understanding of ‘the contemporary Chinese culture of learning’ and Chinese students’ in-class silence?
The study: Nicole, Monica, Stephanie and Jack
The data reported in this article are part of a bigger project consisting of multiple small projects focusing on different aspects of international students’ experiences in English-speaking countries What is presented in this article is a particular focus on a group of Chinese MG students’ perceptions of their in-class silence and that of their peers, and is based on the data collected through individual semi-structured in-depth interviews and follow-up one-to-one conversations from a qualitative case study research conducted with four students They were asked to talk about their in-class experience and give reasons for when, why, how and to what extent they and other classmates may appear silent in both Chinese and Australian classrooms They were also asked to give different meanings to their own silence and that of their peers All these participants were born in 1980s, followed their education from primary
to undergraduate levels in Mainland China, and were enrolled in postgraduate courses in an Education Faculty at an Australian university at the time of the data collection
The participants, Nicole, Monica, Stephanie and Jack (their preferred pseudo-nyms), were in their early 20s Lily, the co-author of this article, also kept diaries and wrote reflections on her interpretations of in-class silence and the value clashes she experienced as an MG member, and how that might contribute to her reading of silence
We acknowledge that this participant sample is limited in its scope in that all five participants, including Lily, come from one-child families in urban areas of China
We argue, however, that these findings challenge existing approaches to studying ‘the Chinese learner’ and offer valuable insights into understanding perceived reasons for why many Chinese students tend to keep silent in Western classrooms These findings also suggest silence as pedagogy in which teachers can draw on students’ enactment
of their interpretations of silence to promote learning in contexts where silence/ reticence tends to dominate
Trang 8Deconstructing silence: the language barrier motivates rather than hinders speaking
In investigating the participants’ own experiences of in-class silence, this study asked questions related to how their English proficiencies may influence their in-class participation in Australian classrooms While it is evident that the language barrier
to some extent impacted these participants’ communication in class, it is also clear that they had a very high expectation of what level of proficiency they wished to acquire in order to communicate at ease in English For example, Monica and Jack hoped to speak English ‘like native speakers’ and ‘as good as I speak Chinese’ As such, they reported wanting to further improve their English to achieve those
‘idealised’ proficiencies
None of the participants stated that the language barrier was decisive in their choice and/or confidence to speak up or to remain silent Nicole and Monica even indicated that their low language ability was actually a positive factor in encouraging their oral participation As they reported, every time they thought of the reasons why they came to Australia to study, they would force themselves to participate orally, believing that speaking would help them to improve their English So in contra-diction to the findings shown in other studies that one of the obvious reasons for Chinese students not to speak up in Western classrooms is the language barrier (e.g Wang, 2010; Zhou et al., 2005), the Chinese students in this study saw the language barrier as a factor that motivated them to speak more
This finding shows that a language barrier could motivate some non-native-English-speaking students to speak up rather than hinder them from participating orally Seeing a language barrier from this perspective suggests that researchers and educators should explore other factors than language that may cause/encourage many Chinese international students to keep silent in Australian classes
Deconstructing silence: what happened in their classrooms in China?
We are expected to speak up in class but we choose to keep silent
In contrast to what most of the studies on Chinese education reviewed above have argued, the participants in this study all reported that when they studied in China they were expected to break silence in classrooms and that teacherstudent communication was encouraged For instance, Nicole stated that ‘Teachers ask us
to participate in the first lesson each semester’, while Monica noted that teachers in China ‘would encourage us to speak up in classrooms, sometimes were even very angry when there were no students raising hands to answer teacher’s questions’ Furthermore, in order to encourage students’ participation, all the participants reported that their teachers made efforts to help students break their silence These efforts to encourage students to speak, however, were not necessarily appreciated by students as they were seen to be forced and formulaic Take, for instance, what Jack said:
Some teachers obliged us to say something in classrooms, gave us credit in the final assessment, in that situation, I would speak up, but just for the credits, as it was important for my final marks But I don’t like that way, feeling that I am forced to
do, not from my own willingness
Trang 9It is in this setting in which students are forced to speak that the issue of silence emerges What is clear from the responses of the participants in this study is that they often choose to be silent to protest at being forced to speak
We don’t speak because we don’t like the class atmosphere and because our voices are not valued
The participants described their classrooms in China as being ‘serious’, ‘boring and full of many rules’ conditions that discouraged them from actively participating They also reported that because so much content was taught in one lesson, little time was available for students’ questions or discussions Students were aware of this, and resented questions asked by classmates whom they felt unnecessarily took up class time Nicole, for instance, referred to other students’ reactions whenever a classmate raised a question in class: ‘If the question a student asks is a common one, then the others would show nothing, otherwise, the others would do something, such as giving off sighs, knocking the desks, to show their resentment for wasting their time’ This created a negative atmosphere that discouraged students’ oral participation, according to the participants
Adding to this negative atmosphere was a sense that the individual ideas and opinions of students were not valued because any question asked by teachers usually allowed only one standard answer that teachers were looking for Therefore, in these students’ eyes, speaking up in class in this context was not an expression of their ideas, but a repetition of what the teachers had said or an offering of the standard answers available in the reference books or test papers As such, oral participation was not seen as an important part of learning, according to the participants So silence, in this sense, could be considered as a choice too
We don’t speak because we don’t want others to know what we know
In addition to the factors above which contributed to creating a negative environment in the classroom, which led students to be silent, the participants also referred to the high-pressured assessment system as a reason for the potential existence of a competitive and unsupportive atmosphere in their classrooms in China that leads students to remain silent Stephanie directly pointed out that there existed
a fierce competitive atmosphere that outsiders often did not see beneath the harmonious relationship:
My classmates worked hard on their own, and never wanted to share knowledge with others They only wanted to get knowledge from others, not share with others what they know, because everyone wanted to do well in examinations and had an opportunity to further their education in a good school In classrooms, when we were asked a question, in fact everyone knew the answer, but we just kept silent very selfish
In Stephanie’s view, many Chinese students’ unwillingness to orally participate in class was borne out of the fear that sharing knowledge would result in giving advantages to one’s competitors for the limited educational resources
Trang 10We don’t speak because we don’t want to be isolated by peers
Such a competitive atmosphere, according to the participants, thus led students to avoid voluntary participation It also created an environment where those who did actively participate were looked down upon Monica and Nicole noted that those who actively participated in classrooms were likely to be isolated by their peers In particular, the participants pointed out that speaking in class was seen by many students as a sign of gaining a teacher’s favour; and as such those who spoke in class would be seen as opportunistic and were, as a result, isolated by their classmates Jack said:
Those who actively participated in class would have other agendas I know I shouldn’t surmise others’ intentions, maybe they just wanted to speak up But at that time,
I did think that perhaps they wanted to develop a good relationship with teachers, or to leave a good impression on teachers by means of showing off how much knowledge they had
Monica further confirmed Jack’s point, saying:
In Chinese students’ eyes, teachers had the right to mark students, there were some called impression points So if a student was active in classrooms, he/she would be regarded as having an intention to leave a good impression on teachers in order to get extra points, or other benefits, such as the honour, or reference to key schools I think that some students’ active participation aimed to draw teachers’ attention, so as to make others be ignored And in exams, he/she could get extra credits This sucked, as it broke the rule of fairness
We don’t speak because we care about face in China
Face was also a concern that the participants referred to, and this finding confirms past research on Chinese education, in which many students wanted to avoid being laughed at or humiliated by the others when they attempted to orally respond
to teachers’ questions It can be seen that in the concern of face, it is not only the
‘self-face’, but also the consideration of the ‘other-face’, both of which prevented these participants from speaking up in their Chinese classrooms
Silence as both respect and protest
The participants also reported if they viewed their teachers as ‘bad’ and ‘inefficient’ teachers, they would show silence as a form of resistance This confirms Grimshaw’s (2007) findings that many students in China nowadays do not conform
to the image of being students who do not dare to show their critical attitudes and evaluative judgements to their teachers, as is often shown in many studies on Chinese learners But the point here is that these participants still wanted to show their attitudes and protest in a respectful manner, and hence silence was the best choice
As elaborated by Jack, when the Internet tends to challenge the teacher’s authority status in China, silence seems to be a strategically respectful way to ignore teachers in class: